Web 2.0 is characteristically defined by the migration of user applications from desktop to the web browser. With the rise of several small and large web applications being developed, there has been a rousing demand for the perfect web framework to facilitate the development process.

Since Python is undoubtedly the most popular language for web application development, there are a plethora of open-source frameworks available for it. Among them, two frameworks stand above the crowd – Django and Flask.

Choosing the right framework among these two is the biggest dilemma that most web application developers face these days. Let’s try to find out which is the better framework from multiple perspectives.

What are Web Frameworks?

In a nutshell, web frameworks are development environments that facilitate rapid development of web applications. You can visualize these as chunks of small programs that you can deploy to create a web application as opposed to writing the code for these programs.

Let’s take a simple analogy to understand it even better. Suppose you have to construct a house. One way would be to make it brick by brick and binding each brick with cement. Another way would be to layout pre-cast walls and use cement to bind them together. Both give the same results, but the latter process takes much lesser time.

Web app frameworks also mitigate the occurrence of errors and ensure robust security besides making the code simpler and allowing the developers to focus on the unique parts of their application instead of the basic low-level parts such as sockets and protocols.

Python has a lot of web frameworks apart from Django and Flask, like, Tornado, Falcon, Diesel etc, but these two are the most popular.

Django

This framework can be best described as the ultimate out-of-the-box solution for rapid web application development.

The defining features of Django are a built-in admin panel and several plugins that make the production a piece of cake. Working in Django is also desirable because of its high customizability and a simple database management making it ideal for big projects. Besides, you get high community support in case you face errors or get stuck at some point. Django has more than 80,000 questions present on Stack-Overflow besides a plethora of documentation and dedicated blogs for support.

But for small applications, Django becomes overwhelmingly difficult and unnecessary. The learning curve for Django is quite deep too.

Complexity arises in Django because it has strict guidelines for how things need to work in its framework. It is restrictive in its module composition and you would have to learn about the directory structure before going about the development. Although you can deploy 3rd party modules directly to your application making it even simpler to use.

Flask

This framework presents a stark contrast to Django and is known for its simplicity to do things the way you want it. Flask is quite young and has a long way to go, but it is best suited for beginners and small projects.

Flask’s defining features are its extreme flexibility and minimalist approach that lets you create apps much faster than any other framework. It is very easy to route URLs in it and can be considered one of the easiest frameworks to learn.

The reason for this simplicity and flexibility is that you can insert files or directories depending on the requirements and usage. There is no convoluted directory structure that can restrict such flexibility.

Although for big projects it comes out as seriously lacking in features and database capabilities. The absence of community support for this young framework further restricts the usage of Flask for complex projects.

Verdict of Django vs Flask

As seen from above discussion, both Django and Flask are great at what they do. They bring different sets of strengths to the table and have their own weaknesses too.

It would be best to conclude that both of them are great, but for different use cases.

If your project’s scale is quite big but requires standard modules for most of the part, go with Django. It is the framework to go for creating your typical online store or dynamic blog and would save you a lot of man-hours with extensive out-of-the-box features.

On the other hand, if you necessarily require a finer-control on the project development instead of the standard features, Flask is your best bet. For small applications also Flask is the better choice as it would shorten the project turn-around time.

Conclusion

Choosing the right framework for web application development is the most important part of development process. A correct framework can reduce time and effort significantly to deliver the project timely and at minimum cost. Choose wisely!